Jakarta (Antara Babel) - A politician from the National Democrat Party (Nasem) has criticized the proposal for the setting up of a special parliamentary committee (pansus) in reaction to the recent presidential election results.
"The move is a form of political immaturity in reaction to results of an election as a political contest, and does not reflect the intention of improving the election system. It is a mere tool for making an issue out of the event," Ferry Mursyidan Baldan, said in a written statement received by Antara here, Saturday.
The proposal was groundless from various points of view, Ferry, who was also the spokesman of the Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla presidential ticket, said.
Political parties grouped in the Red and White coalition supporting the Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa pair would continue consolidation efforts with regard to the planned establishment of the committee to probe their allegations of fraud in the recent presidential election, Akbar Tanjung, a member of the advisory team of the duo, said.
"The coalition parties have agreed to continue their efforts to set up the committee and believed it would be realized because they hold the majority seats in the DPR," he said.
The coalition parties in the House Commission II meetings would certainly summon the KPU to explain about alleged irregularities in the election process, he said.
"The DPR members will raise a lot of questions to KPU regarding the irregularities and cases that run against the laws KPU is supposed to implement," he said.
Ferry criticized DPR members who supported the plan saying that they should have conducted election monitoring as a preventive measure from the start and not afterwards.
"As most of the DPR members are also part of the success team of a presidential ticket, the move would be inappropriate. It would only create an impression that they were using the state institution to meet their partisan interests," he said.
With regard to its functioning, a DPR special committee is used for investigating a government policy that has allegedly harmed the state, Ferry said.
In view of that, would the DPR special committee be used to investigate alleged cases of violations in the implementation of the presidential election or to question its results, he asked.
"The election is done following an order of the constitution and laws and not upon the will of the General Election Commission (KPU) while the results of the election are the will or choice of the people. So, do we have a right to get angry with the people's choice or to dislike it?" he asked.
The timing was also not right as the current term of the DPR members would end on September 30, and they would be left with only 42 days to set up the committee, Ferry believed.
On October 1, 2014 the new DPR members who were elected on April 9 are scheduled to be sworn-in, he added.
"In view of that, wouldn't it be better if the DPR members focused on finishing the jobs that they had not yet finished including some draft laws, especially since the KPU had already confirmed the results of the election while complaints have also been accommodated by the Constitution Court?" he asked.
The setting up of a DPR special committee was improper and had the potential to disrupt the stages of the presidential election and the democratic order that has been regulated according to the law, Ferry said.
The Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa camp withdrew from the recounting process by the KPU while it was about to finish and rejected the election, citing massive and systematic fraud in a number of regions.
The KPU continued the recount and later declared the Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla pair as the winners.
The Jakarta governor and former vice president garnered 70,957,833 or 53.15 percent of the votes while the Prabowo-Hatta pair 62,576,444 or 46,85 percent.
The Prabowo-Hatta pair has filed a lawsuit in the Constitutional Court which is expected to give its ruling on August 22.
Besides the legal effort, the Prabowo-Hatta camp also plans to bring up the case in parliament by proposing the setting up of a special committee.
